Day 1, Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen Travel Blog

After having driven all day long the yesterday to get to New York, we decided to go to Watkins Glen on our first day up here.

Watkins Glen is best known for the races that occur there a few times a year, whether it's NASCAR or Grand Prix. The town, itself, is named after a canyon formed by a stream making its way from the top of a mountain down to Seneca Lake, one of New York's Finger Lakes.

The glen has a bunch of waterfalls and the canyon walls are, for the most part, completely vertical. It's too treacherous to walk during the winter, and doesn't open until very late in the spring. During the winter, the walls are covered with icecicles which constantly fall as the rock gives way under their weight.

Typically, there's a tram that runs either from the bottom to the top and lets you walk down, or picks you up at the bottom and takes you back to your car at the top. Unfortunately, the tram wasn't running today.

We decided it would be far easier to walk up first and then come back down, rather than walk down and have to trudge back up.